Pandemic Studios (a division of Electronic Arts) has announced The Lord of the Rings: Conquest for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Nintendo DS. The action game is set for a global release in fall 2008.

In a partnership with New Line Cinema, The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is an action-packed game created by the same Pandemic Studios team behind the best-selling Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II titles. Set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” universe as depicted by the Academy Award-winning films, players will finally fight the entirety of these epic battles any way they want. In addition to crusading as the heroic forces of good, for the first time ever in a ‘The Lord of the Rings’ action title they’ll conquer Middle-earth while playing as the legions of Sauron’s evil army, including Cave-trolls, Oliphaunts, the Balrog and Sauron himself.
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Sierra has announced the development of The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor videogame adventure based on this Summer’s $100 million budgetted blockbuster, the third The Mummy movie, from Universal Pictures starring Brendan Fraser and Jet Li. The game, which will mirror the fast-paced action and adventure depicted in the film, is being developed by Eurocom Studios for the Wii and PlayStation 2 and by A2M for Nintendo DS. With The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor movie coming to theathers on August 1st, the videogame is expected to be available in America from July 22nd and in Europe from August 8th, 2008.

In the third-person action-adventure game The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, players will take on the roles of Rick O’Connell and his son, Alex (played by Brendan Fraser and Luke Ford, respectively, in the film). Gamers will follow the lead characters on their harrowing journey - across exotic locations from ancient Chinese catacombs to beautiful, but dangerous, Himalayan peaks - to defeat the revived servants of the Dragon Emperor (Jet Li). The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor allows players to switch seamlessly between gunplay and hand-to-hand melee attacks, and also features a fast and fluid combat system and an arsenal of weaponry that can be used to vanquish the many bone-chilling enemies players will face during their journey. Fans will fight their way through The Mummy universe by utilising combat, puzzle-solving and hieroglyphic decoding gameplay elements.

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With the Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit release date coming up for June 10th, 2008. The Versus fighting game series will make its debut on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Complete with fierce online battles and radical 3D graphic effects, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit will blur the line between videogame and iconic anime series. Jam-packed with graphically enhanced playable characters, realistic battle stages and environments.

The following fight is a result of how you progress in the game, which will trigger scenes or events that aren’t part of the DBZ timeline. These are the so-called “What If” events.

It’s time to bury the hatchet… in your opponent’s face! Watch as Trunks and Recoome face off.

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Today Nintendo of Europe (and Australia) added new classic games to the popular Wii Shop Channel. The games went live at midnight CET. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at stores like Amazon UK (Card).

The second week of the Hanabi Festival 2 brings more Japanese and American exclusives to the Wii Shop Channel, this this time courtesy of SNK Playmore, Sega, Hudson Soft, and Naxat Soft.

We’ve included videos of the games so you can see if it’s for you. This week’s new games are:

Metal Slug (priced 900 Wii Points = €9 / £6.75 / AU$13.50): Take up the challenge of Metal Slug. SNK’s classic side-scrolling military action game from 1996. You control Marco (in one player mode) and Tarma ((in two player mode), members of the special ops force Team Peregrine Falcom (Team PF). Team PF are the Army’s last hope in their quest to overthrow the rogue General Morden and recapture the stolen weapon Metal Slug. — Move through the levels by jumping and using the wide range of weaponry at your disposal, including heavy machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers and flamethrowers as well as the Metal Slug itself. Use them well as you take on waves of enemies in one- or two-player mode. The tutorial is available in English and Portuguese. Game supports Wii Component AV cable Interface Mode.

Puyo Puyo 2: Tsuu (priced 900 Wii Points = €9 / £6.75 / AU$13.50): The object of this head-to-head puzzle game from 1994 is to clear your grid of falling patterns called puyos by forming chains of four or more same-colored puyos in a straight line or one of several geometric patterns. What makes this a challenging two-player contest is the fact that when you clear a chain of puyos from your grid, it drops a random piece of filler onto your opponent’s grid. The more puyos you clear, the more you fill your opponent’s grid, and if you can clutter up his grid enough to fill it to the top, you’ve won the game. An intriguing backstory makes this an amusing experience for one or two players. In-game text will include some Japanese. Game supports Wii Component AV cable Interface Mode.

Cho Aniki (priced 900 Wii Points = €9 / £6.75 / AU$13.50): The odd world portrayed in this single player shooter made it quite the conversation piece in its day (1992). Players control either Idaten or Benten, celestial warriors out to bring an end to the tyrannical rule of Emperor Builder, who holds muscular prowess to be the supreme virtue of the universe. Aided by able-bodied muscleheads Adon and Samson, they must battle to defeat the emperor’s army across live stages. Use your weapons to attack the Builder forces. Or cut through them with a man’s ultimate weapon, the Man Beam! Power up your character and options with Protein from defeated enemies to have them bulk up with a yell and take their macho battle to the next level! In-game text will include some Japanese.

Break In (priced 700 Wii Points = €7 / £5.25 / AU$10.50): Gather up to four players for an authentic game of pool right in your own home. Choose from six billiards games such as 9-ball, Rotation and Carom (a game played without pockets). Use Simulation mode to calculate the perfect shot or select Action mode and check out what went wrong with your missed shots. With so much to choose from Break In gives all players, from beginners to experts, everything they need to enjoy a great game of pool. And it doesn’t stop there, select Technique to practice your angles or even go for a trick shot. Get some help from the CPU and hone your skills. With 1989’s Break In you’ll be a pro in no time. In-game text will include some Japanese.

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Cevat Yerly, co-founder and CEO of Crytek, the developer behind Crysis was recently interviewed and touched on the PC gaming piracy issue. To quote: “We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy, to the degree [that PC gamers who] pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won’t have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.” Developers within the company were getting increasingly angry at the online theft of their game and had previously stated that “What wasn’t fantastic was the percentage of those [multiplayer] numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online). The amount of people who pirate PC games is astounding. It blows me away at the amount of people willing to steal games (or anything) simply because it’s not physical or it’s on the safety of the internet to do.”

Back in December 2007 we also touched on the issue that while Crysis only sold 86,633 units in its first month on sale, on certain Bittorrent file sharing sites alone Crysis was illegally downloaded over 300,000 times instead of trying the free Crysis demo! Luckily a few months later the game’s publisher EA said that Crysis sales had picked up steam and it has now sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, recently told GTdaily a similar story to that of Crytek’s Mr. Yerly. Epic’s Unreal Tournament 3 servers received over 40 million attempts at illegitimate access using pirate keys (keys are the serial codes need to install the game and play it online). These games cost $50 each, and like with Crysis… these millions of potential buyers (or at least interested gamers) for Unreal Tournament 3 also had the option to try a free Unreal Tournament 3 demo, you know, instead of stealing years someone else’s hard work. I suppose this shift from PC to console game releases is a natural one for developers like Crytek and Epic. Epic has been taking this approach for a while now by shipping Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC and the PS3, which increased sales of the game to 1.2 million worldwide.

PS: In case you’re thinking it’s just these two companies, it’s becoming an industry trend where even gaming’s biggest titles like the upcoming Madden NFL 09 aren’t getting a PC release anymore. EA Sports boss Peter Moore had this to say: “Piracy’s a big issue on the PC. I can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that it’s very difficult for us…and we lose money making a game. At some point, I have an obligation not to bring out products that lose money.”

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Back in 2006 Mega64 made this video to show how they were training to play Red Steel. Most of their comedy skits are timeless, so let’s have a look how long they last in public this time.

Can you imagine what would’ve happened if you put Mega64 in charge of the Game of the Year 2007 awards? You don’t have to imagine anymore, here are their Madden NFL 08-fanboy choices:

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Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced what new PlayStation Network downloadable games, expansions, demos and videos were released for PlayStation 3 and PSP today.

American Games (Demos):
* Bourne Conspiracy demo
* Haze demo
* Race Driver: GRID demo
* Rocketmen: Axis of Evil - $9.99
* SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 2 demo (for PSP via PC Store, also downloadable via PS3)

American Games (Content):
* Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Muse Track Pack (includes “Exo-Politics”, “Stockholm Syndrome” & “Supermassive Black Hole”) - $6.25
* PixelJunk Monsters Encore - $5.99
* Rock Band tracks - $1.99 each or $5.49 for the pack:
– Angels & Airwaves - “It Hurts” (master)
– Fallout Boy - “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” (master)
– Yeah Yeah Yeahs - “Date With The Night” (master)
* Rock Band price promotion: “CrushCrushCrush” - Paramore and “Rock N Roll Band” - Boston are reduced to $0.99 until May 15th.

American Trailers:
* WipEout HD trailer
* PlayStation 3 “What You Need” video
* Mirror’s Edge Gameplay trailer
* Mercenaries 2: Payback trailer
* Overlord: Raising Hell trailer
* The Wheelman trailer
* TNA iMPACT! Gamers’ Day trailer

American Extras:
* PixelJunk Monsters theme 3
* (2) PixelJunk Monsters wallpapers
* Sports theme

Europe got an extra PlayStation Day content update last Tuesday.

European Games (Demos):
* Race Driver: GRID demo

European Games (Content):
* Army of Two SSC Challenge - Map Pack - €5.49 / £3.99
* Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Def Leppard Track Pack - €5.99 / £7.49
* Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Muse Track Pack - €5.99 / £7.49

European Trailers:
* PlayStation Day trailer: Echochrome Apple Trailer
* PlayStation Day trailer: Play Compilation Trailer
* PlayStation Day trailer: Press Conference Trailers x 9

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EA Sports has announced that Fight Night Round 4 is in development at EA Canada. EA Sports’ Fight Night is back with the most realistic “in the ring” experience to date, featuring some of the greatest boxers in history fighting in their prime. Fight Night Round 4 will be available in 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Featuring a re-written gameplay engine, Fight Night Round 4 will add a variety of fighting styles and boxer differentiation to authentically emulate the greatest fighters of all time. Pressure your opponent with the brawling inside style of young Mike Tyson, bobbing and weaving to set up powerful hooks and uppercuts. Capitalize on Muhammad Ali’s reach, hand speed and fleetness of foot to bewilder your opponent with lightning fast jabs and straights from the outside. For the first time in history, Fight Night Round 4 gives you the opportunity to pit these legendary heavyweights against one another and name a true champ.

EA Sports adds that “No fight will be the same with an all-new physics-based animation system that recreates the full spectrum of true-to-life punch impacts, giving boxers a devastating arsenal of punches, blocks and ring movement. The new physics system allows for missed punches, glancing punches, knockout blows and for the first time ever, rough and tumble inside fighting. Fatigue, adrenaline, footwork and timing all come into play as you hammer away at your opponents.”

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Doom 4 (though it hasn’t officially been named) has officially been announced by id Software coinciding with the fact that the company is looking for new blood (in the form of new employees, not the actual red stuff).

Although the announcement avoided mentioning specifically what platforms the game will be created for, it’s pretty obvious that it will be hitting the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Particularly since the job listings posted online mention all three platforms as well as stuff like a listing for a cinematic art director that asks for “an experienced and creative visionary…who wants to apply their craft to the development of legendary id brands like Quake and Doom” for the “PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.”

Since Doom 3’s release, id has shifted it’s focus to more of a multi-platform developer, even supporting the Mac with their upcoming open-world game Rage. Which is an all-new IP and quite a departure for the developer. And instead of simply farming out platform versions to outside developers, they have now been working on the other platform versions themselves. Which will definitely make all the difference with future titles.

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In a recent interview Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai was asked about the PlayStation 4 and future Sony hardware always being planned / developed far ahead and how he feels about always thinking for what comes next despite Sony’s planned ten-year life cycle for the PlayStation 3. While it may seem obvious that if the PS3 sells well, there will be a PS4, it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes view.

Mr. Hirai answered: “Well I think in any given moment, you need to think both short-term - so, what are we doing next fiscal year, how do we grow the current business - but at the same time, you also need to look four or five years out as well. To say, OK, what is the consumer wanting to do in interactive entertainment five years from now, what can we as a platform holder propose, if you will, to the consumers, to say maybe we should so this or that, and make sure that we keep the consumers engaged, and really also make sure that we are leading the market as opposed to following it. So discussions are happening all the time, about both our short term plans - what are we doing this fiscal year, next fiscal year - as well as, what is the world going to look like, what is the landscape going to look like five years from now, or ten years from now.”

This last sentence would be referring to the PlayStation 4 planning. So the Kikizo interviewer asked what happens with the PlayStation brand in this rapidly progressing technology landscape.

Mr. Hirai answered: “I think so, I think so. But at the same time, I think we have proven with two consoles already that when you say it’s a ten-year lifecycle, it’s a ten-year lifecycle. And we have the luxury I think of being able to keep that long lifecycle going, which means that we don’t need to be talking about our next-generation platform, because again we have a very stable [current] platform. And we certainly don’t want to confuse the consumers once again, by talking about something that may or may not happen five years from now. And that’s something we’re talking about and discussing up here [taps his head] in the company, but it’s not something we talk about openly, again for fear of confusing the consumers. And quite honestly, I think the PlayStation 3, we’ve repositioned it, and it’s got quite a long way to go. I mean we’re just starting here.”

I’m glad there are professional interviewers out there, I’d be asking questions like whether or not the PS4 will have the Spider-Man font as well. I mean, aren’t you curious?

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